


In the Dark Renewing

by WrenWilde



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Season 6, SHEITH - Freeform, don't worry he gets one, keith's wolf needs a name, let them rest, only minor angst, really this is just fluffy, shiro needs a hug, the black lion is best lion, the kind of reunions they need
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 19:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15322263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrenWilde/pseuds/WrenWilde
Summary: After losing the castle and almost each other, even paladins need some time to relax and consider where they stand. (Or the one where there are quiet confessions.)





	In the Dark Renewing

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Sheith Month! This is my first fic in the fandom because I really love these disaster boys and felt like they needed a chance to rest after Season 6. Un-betaed. All mistakes are mine.

It’s always night in space. Keith had grown so accustomed to it that he found the stars more comforting than the thought of Earth. The years in the rift gave him an appreciation for wide spaces and open skies. It had grown as welcoming as the tight cocoon of any cockpit or simulator he’d spent hours in as a boy. Tonight, it was the open window and the view of the alien township in the valley below the Blades of Marmora base as much as the night sky above that gave the same feeling. It meant safety as much as quiet from this height. He leaned out into the darkness and into the breeze ruffling his hair, just listening to the stillness and the soft, almost silent, even breathing in the room behind him. It steadied him more than anything since he'd landed the Altean pod in the hanger. Keith could finally breathe as well. 

There were few quiet moments to be had after the battle. Escaping the castle had taken a lot out of all of them but the trip ahead was just as daunting in its own way. Even now in the privacy of the small quarters, sleep didn’t come easily. Stepping away from the view, he eased his aching limbs back into the chair next to the occupied bed in the room, feeling the weight of them heavier now that he had time to process the discomfort. It wasn’t as immediate as his other concerns. 

He wasn’t ready to step away from this, even in the hours before dawn. Sleep could wait, as could the stiffness creeping into his body from the long hours of his own waiting. Without the pods – without the castle – it would take that much longer to heal. Keith didn’t give it much thought. He had been through worse enough times that the ache was just part of him. It didn’t stop him from fingering the edge of the bandage on his jaw distractedly when he knew he should leave it be. Krolia had already given him a look that suggested as much when she’d seen him doing it. In true Krolia fashion, she didn’t need to say anything; he knew better but the burn beneath still twinged angrily from time to time. The pain was another reminder of his near failure. 

Fortunately, Shiro was still sleeping. He likely would be for some time, leaving the rest of the team to process the events of the last cycles and planning for the future. There was time for that later; they needed to rest now. The echo of Black resonated that very thing. The trill of power and the nudge to rest settled in the back of his skull, welcome and difficult to resist. He had missed the feeling of the lions, as muted as it had become over the months away from them. Stepping into the cockpit was coming home, something he didn’t realize he lost until it returned to him. 

Much like other things. 

Keith knew he should heed Black and follow the others to their quarters. They needed the rest. But in the back of his mind, he feared leaving only to discover that Shiro would be gone again – the stranger wearing his face to return. Or worse, to find that they hadn’t saved him at all. He shifted in his seat distractedly, wincing as he bruised some particularly tender bruise against the side of the chair. Keeping watch. He knew it was absurd even as he knew he wouldn’t leave just yet. He couldn't bring himself to go, even after the others had drifted away when exhaustion finally took hold. Nor was he the only one keeping watch that evening. 

The mound of black and silver fur curled on the bed next to the sleeping paladin had settled in almost immediately once they moved him into the room. Keith couldn't say he was surprised, as the wolf had an uncanny ability to anticipate where Keith would be. He suspected the teleportation ability was in play somehow, though he could never prove it. Shiro didn't stir when the heavier weight of the beast hopped up next to him and even Lance's flailing couldn't dislodge him from the perch. Keith could have warned him it wouldn't work but his own exhaustion, he'd let him figure it on out on his own. Allura had deemed it acceptable before it dragged on too long, putting an end to the argument about whether or not the wolf was allowed to sleep where he chose. 

Shiro didn't seem to mind the extra warmth, then or now. Curled under the piles of blankets, he looked more delicate – and the most human – Keith could ever remember seeing him. Shiro had always been a steadfast presence from the moment he had walked into that classroom and told Keith that he had potential. It was the first time anyone had really looked at him as more than a screw-up or a problem since his father's death. No one had offered him anything more than the barest minimum or given him a reason to believe he could do more. 

It had been two years since he'd seen Shiro and longer since it was actually him. Thinking of the clone, it was hard to find the divide between them. He hadn't known; he should have known. Keith leaned forward absently, propping his chin on his hand and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Shiro slept. In sleep, it was hard to imagine the harsh lines of his face or that sneer as they'd clashed on the bridge. The glow in his gaze when he'd fought so hard to kill him both. He didn't think he could forget that, even as he tracked the small differences between then and now. The startling shock of white hair that did little to age him but stood out in contrast to the dark circles beneath his eyes, smoothed in sleep but still obvious. 

What if he woke and didn't remember any of it? What if he did? 

Shifting forward, Keith tried to shake himself from that line of thought, reaching for the comforting mass of fur that had been his constant company for so long. He buried his fingers into that thick fur and the creature opened one eye to look at him. A soft whuff later, the wolf licked the back of his wrist and then rested his muzzle against Shiro's side once again, watching Keith for a long, unblinking moment before settling back in to sleep, unbothered by it all. His mouth twitched in the unconscious curve of fondness at the simplicity of that. 

Keith wished he was so lucky. Everything had changed since the battle. Black's presence was a soothing pulse now, as steady as Shiro's breathing. He could not deny his connection to the lion any more than he could erase the presence of Shiro from that connection. They were both intrinsically connected to him now, he didn't know where one ended and the other began. 

There were many things he could no longer deny. 

Where did that leave him? In the rift, he saw only vague flashes of the future; none of them offered certainties. He could only guess where it all went from here. With Voltron, things had never been simple but the few constants in their battle against the Empire. They lost the Castle. The Quintessence source beyond the portals. But Shiro was still here and that was something Keith was unwilling to compromise. They would keep moving forward; it was the only option. 

He didn't know the shape of that future yet. It hadn't stopped them so far but the world was a lot bigger than any of them suspected back on Earth, watching the stars above the Garrison and hoping to make it up there one day. Once Shiro disappeared, that dream didn't seem as important anymore. Nothing did apart from discovering the secrets of Kereboros and the mysterious message that came from those stars. Now he had answers for those questions and a host of new ones that remained unanswered. The universe was much bigger than anyone knew. 

They still had the responsibility to protect it. The lions might rest but Voltron was still needed. They were needed. None of them could run from that. 

Even with the weight of the future hanging over him, he couldn't escape his own exhaustion. He couldn't say when he nodded off, feet propped on the edge of the bed and curled awkwardly. Only that he woke to a low noise and the sensation of tumbling forward when his elbow slipped off the arm of the chair. Startled awake, he caught himself before he clipped his chin on the edge. Still sleepy, it took him a moment to track the sound. 

"Shiro." His voice sounded harsh to his own ears, breaking the stillness of the room. He pushed up from the chair, already reaching for Shiro's bundled form. He was shifting in the bed, low pained noises escaping a clenched jaw. Keith touched his shoulder carefully only to pull back when he shuddered under his hand. He was still asleep, he realized. The startled noise came again, this time a little louder than before. Even in the dim light of the room, he could see how rapidly his eyes moved beneath the lids, unhappy expression unfading. His breathing was too fast, too ragged to be anything but a nightmare. 

Keith reached out again, this time purposefully and wrapping a hand around his upper arm to wake him. He spoke gently, low and urgent, hoping to waking him without startling him in the process. “Shiro.” 

It worked, to some degree. Shiro tensed beneath his hand and then shifted toward the sound of his voice. Bleary gray eyes focused on him and he jolted, trying to drag himself upright. “Keith!" 

“It’s alright. You’re okay. It’s okay.” Keith pushed him back, palm flat against his chest. Trying to calm him, he pushed up on the bed, resting one knee against his side as the wolf whined quietly, tail wagging hopefully now that both humans were awake. He could feel the jumpy staccato of his heart beneath his fingers, fast and desperate. He could only imagine what Shiro dreamed in those moments. 

His eyes were red but dry at least for the moment, awareness coming back as he took in the room around them and the fact that he wasn't alone. Keith smiled down at him, unable to hide the expression in his relief. "Hey." 

"You’re here." Shiro's brows knitted; he resisted the urge to smooth them with his thumb to reassure him. It was his Shiro there. No more confusion or the cold rage that drove him in the cloning facility. Exhaustion etched deeply his features, yes, but still Shiro. 

"Of course." There was no other place he would be. 

Shiro pushed himself up, slowly, on one elbow. The other sleeve of his shirt hung empty, the Galra prosthetic gone, even if the bandages beneath were carefully wrapped around the edges of the former tech. Shiro didn't move through any of that: dressing his arm or cleaning him up. Even rummaging through the stockpile of clothes that had been salvaged from Shiro's room in the Castle, they'd had to be creative. 

Keith shifted on the bed, giving Shiro the space but he didn't stand or move away. He wasn't ready to leave yet, not when he finally had the moment to assure himself that Shiro was okay. Wild eyes watched him from beneath messy white hair. It should have aged him but he couldn't stop thinking that now Shiro was one of the stars he'd wanted to visit so badly, a bright spot in the dark. 

Now he looked stricken, pushing upright. "Keith. I'm sorry." 

"Hey. No." He shook his head, cutting off the thought. He knew, then. He knew what Keith had almost done. 

Shiro hunched inward, touching the empty sleeve and exhaling sharply. Keith could guess what he felt, realizing the arm was gone and that Keith had been the one to do it. He had ripped through the metal and in that moment it felt like bone. It felt like betrayal. Keith couldn't take that back, not when everything had been at risk. His decision was set. Shiro reached forward, grasping Keith by the arm and squeezing tightly. "But I-" 

"It can wait." Everything could wait as he was concerned. Right now, everything was right where it should be. 

He dropped his head, forehead resting heavily against Keith’s chest. Fingers gripped his forearm tightly, clinging on as he held on. It took him a moment to make out the words, muffled as they were against his shirt. “I almost killed you.” 

Keith cupped the back of his neck, fingers spreading across the vulnerable spot. The short, fine silvery hair tickled as he slid fingers through it and Shiro shuddered at the contact before leaning more of his weight into his body as Keith curled his shoulders inward around him. “No, you didn’t.” 

Arms tightened around him and Shiro exhaled shakily, voice muffled against his chest. He didn’t need to see his face to know how upset he was. “I did.” 

“Hardly.” Keith didn’t entertain the thought, pushing beyond the anguish in Shiro’s voice. He couldn’t let him believe that, not for a moment. “You didn’t come close.” 

Shiro’s laugh, hoarse as it was, eased the tightness in his chest and he knew his mouth curved upward at the sound. It had been ages since he heard the sound and Keith hadn’t realized how much he missed it. 

Two years is a long time to think. It's a longer time to miss someone. Time and perspective change everything. He came so close to failure. The moment is suspended into eternity: the shock on Shiro’s face, the softening in his expression, and the blade swinging up in an arc to end it. Keith couldn't stop the image from echoing in his mind. It had happened. 

It was this moment that didn’t feel real. He felt warm breath as his neck as Shiro huffed out that laugh, meager as it was. The solid mass of the body against his reminded him it was true. Keith curled around him protectively and Shiro leaned further, settling his weight solidly into him. 

"I missed you." The words were soft, almost unheard. Keith's breath caught in his throat. 

He ducked his head, resting his cheek against the top of Shiro's head. His response came out as half a sigh, an admission he didn't even know he could give. "I missed you, too." 

It wasn't something he could have said before any of this. It was the recognition that so much of his life had been Shiro. Even so much of that had been missing him after Kerboros had gone sideways and again when the Blades had given him a purpose beyond filling Shiro's role as the Black Paladin. They had both changed so much since those moments back on Earth; it seemed a lifetime had passed. 

"I don't know what I would have done if-" 

"It's okay, Takashi," Keith assured, as Shiro burrowed against his shoulder more tightly. "It doesn't matter." 

"I _heard_ you." 

He swallowed, knowing there was no mistaking exactly what he meant. In the moment it had seemed like everything. It still was, even if he didn't need to be told how things were. "Oh." 

"I remember it – all of it. Even before that, when you and Black found me in space. You are always saving me," Shiro said quietly. "I think... when Allura brought me back, we – the other me – and I, we came together." 

Altean mysticism would forever baffle him but Keith didn't know if anything was impossible anymore. He had seen too much to discount the truth of that, even in the last two years of journeying the farthest reaches with Krolia and Romelle. Nothing was too much or too strange. The Black Lion had saved Shiro more than once, it seemed. First after the battle with Zarkon and again when his new body was dying. 

Would Keith have believed this, years ago back on Earth? Everything had changed since then. 

Even now, Keith still didn’t have all the words he needed. It wasn't time for all that. "You should get some rest." 

In the back of his mind, something echoed the thought. It was the same quiet presence that had guided him to Shiro after the fight at the cloning facility. It was also the same that had first settled upon him when he settled into the cockpit. _Rest._

Shiro startled and Keith looked to him knowingly. "You heard?" 

"The Lion." 

"Yeah," Keith confirmed, 

"I didn't think – well. I didn't think it would still be there." 

"Black doesn't abandon her Paladins." Keith felt the contentment through the bond; it was the same unfurling sense of rightness that had accompanied that moment all the lions roared for Shiro earlier in that same day. "I think we're both proof of that." 

This is what it felt like, to know that someone – or even something – didn't give up on you. It was knowing the rightness of being wanted. 

Keith chased the feeling from the moment he stepped away from his father's grave. He chased it to the Garrison and then to the stars themselves, knowing that wherever Shiro led, he followed. Until he followed another path, striking out in parallels that took him away from the Shiro that didn’t need him and a team that wasn’t his own. He found more than he had ever hoped, hand unconsciously tangling in dark fur still curled against his side and leaning against the bigger man. 

"You're always a Paladin." The truth echoed through his bond with Black, spreading to Shiro through that same, quiet connection that pulsed among them. Maybe things had changed but some things were forever. 

Everything was centered in a way Keith couldn’t entirely describe. Shiro tipped his head up and he found himself staring at parted lips and the shape of his own name, forming as a question on them. New awareness made his head spin. It didn’t feel as new as it should. It didn’t feel like any kind of confession, either. Or maybe it had been building for longer than he wanted to acknowledge, this desire. 

When their mouths brushed together, it was careful. Questioning. It was brief and, well, perfect. When Keith pulled back, eyes opening and head tipping back, he sought out Shiro's face half in surprise and half in trepidation. What he found made him pause, swallowing hard. 

Pupils wide and dazed, the soft look in Shiro’s expression mirrored the curl of warmth building in his stomach. “Keith-“ 

“It’s okay.” He didn’t need to talk about it. There was time for that after Shiro slept and healed. Keith could handle everything later. Maybe Shiro regretted it or maybe he’d want to pretend it hadn't happened - 

“Yeah,” Shiro replied with the same crooked smile, pulling him in for a tighter embrace. “It is.” 

He listened to the sound of Shiro breathing, running his fingers through short, silvery hair. It was too much to process in such a short time. Too much changed and everything felt new. But it also felt right. He didn’t know how to ignore that. 

“Stay with me.” Shiro tilted his head up to meet Keith’s gaze again. “I don’t want to be alone.” 

“Shiro-“ Keith hesitated, hand still resting against Shiro’s arm as he took in the exhaustion still obvious in his face. Shiro needed sleep and was probably still just as sore as he was. Fitting two people into this bed would take some work, to say the least. He didn’t know that it would help to add to that. Shiro touched his chin, drawing him back to the present. 

“Please?” His voice caught, making Keith go still. He looked beaten, still wan and tired despite the long sleep. The bruise forming against his jaw reminded Keith of how hard they’d fought. And everything they had lost. “I know I don’t - deserve this. I just-“ 

“No,” Keith cut him off firmly. He couldn’t refuse the offer or the sound of uncertainty in his tone. He didn’t even want to. Shiro deserved everything he had to give if it was what he wanted. Keith wouldn't change that. “I’ll stay.” 

Shiro’s mouth lifted in a shy smile Keith would never refuse. He was incapable of it on any level. That smile had pushed him back into classes at the Garrison, into studying and even pretending to put up with the stupidity of his peers. It had taken him to the stars to follow a flying lion ship. And now? It brought him back to what mattered most. 

He pulled off the knife belt and set it on the table next to the bed. Keith kicked off his boots and then pushed back the covers, nudging the big mass of fur and canid grumbling out of his way to do it. The bed wasn’t made for the three of them but no one seemed inclined to shove off the furriest part of this equation. Much like his inability to refuse Shiro, he couldn’t quite do the same to the wolf, so accustomed to the body heat of the creature during the long months away. 

Shiro shifted, making room for him as best he could, though the flush spreading across his features made it clear he hadn’t thought it through even as he tugged him down onto the bed. There wasn’t room for hesitating anymore; Keith had made this decision. The bed was small but he would make it work, curling up against the much larger paladin’s side. 

“Alright?” 

Shiro breathed out then nodded, head tipped down to watch him. The scrutiny should have made him uncomfortable, given the intimacy of their position, but Keith just lifted a brow and leaned in, emboldened to brush his mouth against an unmarked spot on his jaw. 

"Then let's get some sleep." 

Shiro smiled, wan and tired but real. The solid warmth of his body was proof of that. It was more than enough for tonight and the knowledge that they had won, even if for just now. Keith nudged him, maneuvering so that they were more comfortable. With the dull aches still thrumming through his body, even in the act of lying down he could feel exhaustion threaten. Some of that faded beneath new awareness of Shiro's proximity as he shifted into him a little more. 

The warm weight of the wolf settled against his back, pressing up against him as Shiro leaned back into his chest. He curled his arm around Shiro’s waist, pulling him even closer. Shiro relaxed beneath his hands, uncertainty easing out of him with each steadying breath. 

“I’ll be here.” Keith rested his forehead against the center of Shiro’s back, feeling the tension between his shoulder blades dissolve beneath his touch and the assurance that he wasn’t leaving. 

“I know,” Shiro murmured sleepily against the pillows. “You always are.” 

Keith didn’t even try to hide the smile that broke across his face, though he buried it in the familiar curve of the broad back and scent he’d missed so much.


End file.
